Bittersweet
Opening Prayer
Father, I long for a touch of Your mercy, an experience of Your grace, a sense of Your unconquerable love.
Read ISAIAH 5:8–21
8 Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.
9 The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing:
“Surely the great houses will become desolate,
the fine mansions left without occupants.
10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine;
a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.”
11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning
to run after their drinks,
who stay up late at night
till they are inflamed with wine.
12 They have harps and lyres at their banquets,
pipes and timbrels and wine,
but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord,
no respect for the work of his hands.
13 Therefore my people will go into exile
for lack of understanding;
those of high rank will die of hunger
and the common people will be parched with thirst.
14 Therefore Death expands its jaws,
opening wide its mouth;
into it will descend their nobles and masses
with all their brawlers and revelers.
15 So people will be brought low
and everyone humbled,
the eyes of the arrogant humbled.
16 But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice,
and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts.
17 Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture;
lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich.
18 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit,
and wickedness as with cart ropes,
19 to those who say, “Let God hurry;
let him hasten his work
so we may see it.
The plan of the Holy One of Israel—
let it approach, let it come into view,
so we may know it.”
20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
Isaiah reveals the “great,” for all to see. It is not a pretty picture. They emerge as extortioners (8–10), playboys (11–17) and scoffers (18–23). Not too different from some of the “great” around us today!
Think Further
Six woes (pronouncements and predictions of judgment) conclude Isaiah 5. Isaiah is a listener—to God’s voice (9) and to the sounds and songs of his society. In this season of conviviality and jingling trills, what sounds do I hear, beneath the hubbub and the bonhomie? The Lord pronounces judgment (9)—can “promise” and “judgment” co-locate like this? I ponder the apparent contradiction, but righteousness and justice (16; cf. Isa. 5:7) cannot be established without that which is wrong being disestablished. I examine my own motives as I read this passage again and I ask for a heart free of a sense of pleasure at others’ misfortunes as I reflect on the moral shape of my own society. I remember, as I point the finger at others, that four fingers are pointing back to myself.
Isaiah pictures the rich, lonely in their vast estates (8), which are later abandoned to tramps and sheep (17); the catastrophically small yields on their farms (10); the partygoers who end up thirsty and hungry (11–13), swallowed up by a bigger mouth (14); sinners shackled to their sins like horses to their carts (18); know-alls (21); the morally bankrupt (20); those who do anything for money (23). What is Isaiah’s core diagnosis (12,16,19) of those whom the Lord still calls “my people” (13)?
I pray that in my life the righteousness, justice, work and counsel of God may be seen—that Jesus, the embodiment of God’s person, may be seen in my life. Abraham the hermit (died circa 360) was a missionary priest in a pagan city, who “after years of persecution and blows, by the sheer obstinacy of his gentleness” brought the pagans to the knowledge of the Lover of men (Helen Waddell).
Apply
Which of the listed woes could make you say, “Woe is me!”? Why that one?
Closing prayer
Father, I pray to You: “Lord, through Isaiah’s words take your axe to the frozen sea inside me” (Franz Kafka, 1838–1924).
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